Illusions and Oblivion - The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha - page 381

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Illusions and Oblivion
Today the Upper Purús River is considered one of the most remote and pristine forests
in all the Amazon basin. Classified as part of the Juruá-Purús moist forest ecoregion, the
area is now embraced by the Alto Purús Park, extending over some 2.5 million hectares
(about 5 million acres). It links to the 1.7-million-hectare Manú National Park and the
Chandless State Park in Acre. These three protected areas alone are almost the size of
Costa Rica.
Today, as mostly it was in Euclides da Cunha's time, the area is largely forested, with
trees almost a hundred feet in height and emergents stretching up another fifty feet. The
diversity of flora is exceptionally high, with forests of more than 250 species per hectare.
There are many hardwoods at low densities. Extensive mahogany forests, characteristic
of older-growth secondary vegetation, have made it an area of rampant timber poaching;
this lovely veneer wood has been pushed close to extinction almost everywhere else in
the basin.
The fauna is also diverse and endemic. There are about 170 mammals and more than
554 avian species. 1 It is a region where naturalists thrill to the presence of very rare spe-
ciessuchasthegiantAmazonriverotter,theshort-eareddog,andtheAmazonriverturtle,
whichinotherpartsofitsrangehashaditseggsconsumedandbeenitselfhuntedtoproto-
extinction.Toppredatorssuchthejaguarandprizedpreyitemslikepeccariesarealsopart
of charismatic fauna of the remote and pristine Purús.
TheUpperPurús,accordingtomodernassessments, isarefugeoftribesthat“runfrom
man.” Indeed, part of the justification for the preservation was to protect the traditional
territorial rights of the Masco-Piro, who flee at the sight of missionaries, loggers, and en-
vironmentalistsinequalpanic. 2 Humansthere,inthisversionofthePurús,likenature,are
seenattheirmostprimal.Portrayedas“thelastnomadicindigenouspeopleonearth,” 3 the
peopleareherdedintoanimaginaryEden,asettingsomehowoutsidetidesofanyhistory.
ThesemoderndescriptionsechoFatherJoãoDaniel'sassessment,writtenfromhisinquis-
itional cell at the end of the eighteenth century: “There is nothing between the Madeira
and the Javari.” Yet the Masco-Piro had a long and fabled history in the realms of rubber,
as da Cunha was at pains to let us know, as two of the ethnicities of the thousands of nat-
ive slaves who were lured by Carlos Scharff and the Fitzcarraldos. Even über-caucheiro
Arana had some men roaming in this outback, as da Cunha reported in his confidential
report to Rio Branco.